Your shoes start pinching before you admit you outgrew them. Lives work like that too.

Discomfort shows up well before the admission does. The shoes are tight for weeks while you adjust how you walk, because saying they no longer fit means doing something about it. Situations work the same way: the job, the friendship, the course usually start pinching long before you let yourself say the sentence.

Think about where you have been quietly adjusting lately. Where you have changed how you behave to keep something comfortable that is not. Say it out loud once, to yourself or to someone, and see whether it sounds as dramatic as you feared.